Live Oak
Posted on | January 25, 2012 | 2 Comments
At a certain age numberless Americans and Canadians turn into snowbirds as the icy winds pour down from arctic climes, bringing with them snow. The snowbirds come 
to Florida and walk the beach, putter in the shops, and eat too much. This January we joined the flock to go to Melbourne, forty miles south of Cape Canaveral. It’s not a great place for woodworkers, but in compensation there is one tree that hovers over all the others, spreading monumental arms out over sandy soil – the live oak. Walking through the pathways of a lovely park near us, we discovered some that the park supervisor told us were five hundred years old. Nifty signs along the boardwalk circling among them spoke of plants with Latin names the botanists use, but there is nothing like the awe of looking up in their massive trunks, festooned with Spanish moss and air plants. Here’s a poem I wrote to try to catch the spirit of these mighty oaks within a constant cycling of life.
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This oak
this live oak
resplendent
epiphatic life erupting on its arms
brings cooling shade to torpid creatures
crawling on the mossy floor and rattling leaves.
This oak
this live oak
recumbent
necrophatic life in banquet underneath its trunk
becomes a pelican for fungal nutrients
to feed new oaks
that rise again
garlanded with gossamer bromeliads
to seek the sky.
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William J. Everett
In my teaching career I authored eight books and numerous articles in social ethics and religion. After over thirty years of academic work — in Germany, India, and South Africa as well as in the United States — I wanted to turn my hand to a poetically written novel to probe the issues of ecological and human reconciliation.
When I am not writing, I create furniture for worship settings. For more about my work, go to www.WisdomsTable.net, where you will also find galleries of artwork by my wife Sylvia, whose ancestors were the original inspiration for Red Clay, Blood River. READ MORE...
Red Clay Blood River
Red Clay, Blood River is a story told by Earth about two brothers from Germany and an enslaved South African woman whose lives bind together America’s “Trail of Tears” and South Africa’s simultaneous “Great Trek” of 1838.
January 25th, 2012 @ 1:58 pm
Thank you for the poem and photos regarding the Florida Live Oaks. They’re impressive but in my opinion, not nearly as stately and beautiful as the Tulip Poplar and numerous other trees I viewed at Overbrook last summer.
sis-in-law
January 26th, 2012 @ 8:54 pm
Your beautiul blog forms a touching background and salute to a local cypess, age 2500 (not a typo), that just went up in flames,
reminding us of the gifts of all nature. Tim B